This invention relates to musical instruments and more specifically to a unique method and apparatus for enabling operation of electronic music synthesizers by musicians accustomed to playing non-keyboard instruments such as guitars, banjos, etc.
For many years, musicians utilizing single instruments have been presented with electronic and/or electromechanical methods for controlling other instruments. For example, various methods for utilizing guitars to control electronic organs have been disclosed. Other methods for utilizing trumpet instrument fingerings to produce corresponding tones on electronic organs have also been disclosed.
With the advent of the electronic musical synthesizers, a tremendous range of new sounds has become available. The first musical controller utilized for the synthesizer was the standard piano-type keyboard which allowed pianists and organists access to the synthesizer. Several years later, guitarists were able to enter the realm of synthesizers with the introduction of guitar-to-synthesizer interfacing devices, sometimes referred to as guitar synthesizers.
The prior art guitar synthesizers are of two general types. One type provides the user with a specially constructed guitar with sensing elements in the neck to indicate tones being played. A second type provides a special electromagnetic pick-up for the musicians' own guitar to allow sensing of the strings vibrations which in turn are interrogated externally by additional circuitry to determine tones being played. In both cases, after the tone(s) are determined, conversions are implemented by electronic means to produce voltages and control signals that drive the electronic synthesizer to cause the production of corresponding tones.
Both of these prior art methods have severe shortcomings. With the specially constructed guitar, as provided in the prior art, musicians must either swap their own guitar for the synthesizer guitar each time they require the special synthesized sounds, or play only the special guitar. Since guitarists spend much time and money in selecting their own guitar, there is strong resistance to playing another guitar full time, even to acquire special voicings. The total inconvenience of switching guitars in mid-song should be apparent.
With the special electromagnetic pick-up method, the user can continue to use his own guitar and switch the special effects in or out as required. However, this method creates severe problems in the electronic extraction of the tone. The vibrating string is a complex sound generator and creates tremendous problems when trying to determine the one tone that is being played. This gives rise to poor reliability, high cost and extraneous sounds being produced unless the musician alters his playing technique drastically. Additionally, feed-through from one vibrating string to another does not allow polyphonic synthesizers (more than one note at a time) nor usage with hollow-body guitars. A hollow-body guitar by design has more resonance and thus more intense string vibrations than solid body guitars. Vibrations caused by the plucking of one string causes sympathetic vibrations of the remaining strings and may cause a situation where the tone extraction circuit cannot effectively operate in this highly interactive environment.
A third type of musician-to-synthesizer interface that has not found any commercial implementation but has appeared in some periodicals is mentioned here as a comparison. The interface is typically made in the form of a flat typewriter-type keyboard with rows and columns of keys. Playing the instrument is done by pressing one or more of the keys using typewriter techniques. Even if the keys are capacitive touch keys instead of mechanical action switches, this interface does not approximate a real instrument of any kind and is useful only as an experimental device for musicians not accustomed to either keyboards or guitars.
From the above description it can be seen that all existing guitar-synthesizer interfaces suffer from one or more deficiencies; the most prevalent being:
(1) causing the guitarist to modify his normal playing technique by requiring extra care in plucking or fretting;
(2) eliminating several normal guitar characteristics such as sustain, open notes, chord capabilities or hammer; and
(3) causing the guitarist to totally give up his own guitar for a specially modified device.